President Trump's desire to frame a new relationship with Moscow – another "reset," by yet another president – was an ill-fated dream. As the character "Lorraine McFly" said in the movie, Back to the Future, "It was meant to be!" U.S.-Russia geo-political differences were simply too great to be overcome by Trump's rhetorical outreach and Rex Tillerson's visit - and that was before the U.S. cruise missile attack on the Syrian airfield. At this point, as NYT correspondent David Sanger summarized, Washington-Moscow relations are "reverting to norm;" there is no expectation they will improve any time soon.
- In many ways, until Tillerson's arrival in Moscow, it was "the best of weeks" for Trump's young foreign policy team: the president welcomed key Middle East leaders from Jordan and Egypt to the White House; greeted NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and in the process provided (overdue) support to the trans-Atlantic alliance; hosted what now seems like a successful summit with Chinese President Xi Jingping; and ordered a measured military response to Assad's chemical attack, a response that received wide support domestically and internationally.
- The Xi summit result was the most surprising: on the business side, what many critics initially thought was merely a "100-day plan to produce a plan" appeared in the end to secure PRC agreement to further squeeze North Korea economically. If true, this would represent a major step forward in addressing the principal security threat to NE Asia, and ultimately, to the U.S..
But on last week's central feature, the high-level U.S.-Russia meetings in Moscow, the Trump dream on U.S.-Russia relations bumped against another harsh reality: the future of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad. In yet one more 180-degree reversal of Mr. Trump's foreign policy campaign positions, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled that "steps are underway" to secure the removal of the Syrian president.
- Coming less than two weeks after Tillerson said that the future of Assad "is up to the Syrian people," Rex's Moscow statement was breathtaking. Coupled with his February reassurance to anti-Assad foreign ministers meeting in Bonn that the U.S. backed UN efforts to broker a political settlement in Syria, the Trump reversal seemed complete.
If this sounds familiar, it is: it's the same road map used by Secretary Kerry and President Obama. Neither wanted a major deployment of U.S. troops into the Syrian nightmare, and both wanted a "Geneva-style" political solution that eased Assad out of Damascus and installed a caretaker government that could stitch together the fractured tapestry that is today's Syria. The difference is that President Trump just demonstrated a willingness to change the "facts on the ground," to give Syrian rebels fighting against Assad a credible voice at the Geneva negotiating table.
But ultimately, to end the Syrian tragedy (beyond defeating ISIS), the U.S. will need Moscow's help; after last week, that prospect seems more distant than ever.
